Best learning app with integrated task management for Academics?

Posted by Lucine
May 16, 2025 at 11:27 PM

What are some older gems as well as new innovations (preferably with a decent free plan, even if to just try out the concepts), in the area of mostly active studying with sideline abilities such as notetaking, tasks and (recurring) reminders? Some that come to mind are Scrivener for the modular writing capability, but I don’t see much use for it beyond what Rightnote can already provide with nested pages, nav pane and ability to export any selection of notes as one merged file.

What is good for honing your thinking as well as processing vast amounts of info? Preferably the ability to add images would be great, like I use Dynalist all the time for the beginnings of drafts or class notes, but the inability to add images or in-line multimedia severely limits it, and I end up using Logseq or Siuyan for it if this need ever arises. What the latter two have that make them stand out is the ability to open pdf highlihgts to that specific area in the pdf in a side pane in-app, as well as the ability to insert the reference/link to those paragraphs anywhere in any outline. It’s awesome, but it’s like all these apps are islands in themselves, each with certain features that are great but nothing that’s even remotely satisfying enough. I guess that’s the one thing that brings many of us back here again and again.

Thanks.

Posted by satis
May 17, 2025 at 01:36 AM

Notion fits somewhat but there’s only manual links and not direct PDF highlight linking last I looked. It’s flexible and has a generous free plan for students/academics, with unlimited blocks/pages.

If you’ve used Logseq and Siuyan I’m surprised you haven’t delved in Obsidian, which does most of what you’re looking for but whose PDF highlight linking is supposed to be less seamless than Logseq.

Much as I dislike Evernote, it mostly fits your needs, though you won’t be able to try out PDF linking and annotation in the free plan. It too offers a discounted plan for students/teachers.

One newer learning app might include Pixno AI Notetaker. Pixno is great at turning visual material into structured notes, and it integrates with notetaking apps, specifically touting integration with Notion, Obsidian, Google Docs, Evernote, and MS-docs.

https://photes.io

Posted by Lucine
May 17, 2025 at 12:58 PM

Hi Satis,

photes.io seems intriguing, thanks for the recommendation. I did try out Obsidian a couple of times, uninstalling it every time. The last time was almost a year ago, but it had this very annoying problem of putting images in the document as sub-documents in the navigation pane, which became insanely chaotic after just a few docs. The dark look was also not appealing, but mostly it was the navigation pane uselessness, and no outliner mode (although there are probably extensions for all that). But you’re right, it might be worth checking out with fresh eyes to see if it is more useful now than in the past.

Thanks for the suggestions.

satis wrote:
Notion fits somewhat but there’s only manual links and not direct PDF
>highlight linking last I looked. It’s flexible and has a generous free
>plan for students/academics, with unlimited blocks/pages.
> >If you’ve used Logseq and Siuyan I’m surprised you haven’t delved in
>Obsidian, which does most of what you’re looking for but whose PDF
>highlight linking is supposed to be less seamless than Logseq.
> >Much as I dislike Evernote, it mostly fits your needs, though you won’t
>be able to try out PDF linking and annotation in the free plan. It too
>offers a discounted plan for students/teachers.
> >One newer learning app might include Pixno AI Notetaker. Pixno is great
>at turning visual material into structured notes, and it integrates with
>notetaking apps, specifically touting integration with Notion, Obsidian,
>Google Docs, Evernote, and MS-docs.
> >https://photes.io
> >

Posted by Amontillado
May 17, 2025 at 01:16 PM

I believe this might be addressed by the Obsidian option to put attachments elsewhere other than in the current folder with the document.

Devonthink remains my go-to for organizing information. I think version 4, which I can’t yet run due to my antiquated coal-fired Mac, has a node map function. That’s the only Obsidian feature I wish DT V3 had, and it’s not a deal killer for me. The see-also pane in the Inspector does what I need, even though not graphically.

My quirky beef with Obsidian is that I need a separate copy of each community plugin in each vault. I prefer many vaults/databases over a single huge one.

Lucine wrote:
Hi Satis,
> >photes.io seems intriguing, thanks for the recommendation. I did try out
>Obsidian a couple of times, uninstalling it every time. The last time
>was almost a year ago, but it had this very annoying problem of putting
>images in the document as sub-documents in the navigation pane, which
>became insanely chaotic after just a few docs.

Posted by Lucine
May 17, 2025 at 01:56 PM

@Amontillado:

Good to know there is that option in Obsidian!
It’s sad there isn’t anything remotely like Devonthink for Windows, from what I know so far at least.
Re-installing plugins for every vault does sound like a pain and not really scalable. That’s the main impression I had of obsidian, that it doesn’t scale well.

@Satis:

As for Evernote, IIRC they drastically reduced the number of free notes overnight some years ago, that seems like a douche move and they seem unreliable. I remember when Diigo was the rage back then and they did something similar by retroactively putting limits so you couldn’t do anything with your notes anymore. I had an Airtable-Zapier integration with Pocket that had been passively adding Pocket links to Airtable for years since I forgot I had set it up, turns out they set the limit on the amount of items per base at some point and my links stopped being synchronized. It’s their right if it’s reasonable (which in the case of Airtable it might have been, I never went back to see what the new limits were etc), but once a company does a douche move, it’s hard to trust them again.
P.S. if you suggest Evernote, why not OneNote instead? It’s free, unlimited and has more features than Evernote right?

Amontillado wrote:
I believe this might be addressed by the Obsidian option to put
>attachments elsewhere other than in the current folder with the
>document.
> >Devonthink remains my go-to for organizing information. I think version
>4, which I can’t yet run due to my antiquated coal-fired Mac, has a node
>map function. That’s the only Obsidian feature I wish DT V3 had, and
>it’s not a deal killer for me. The see-also pane in the Inspector does
>what I need, even though not graphically.
> >My quirky beef with Obsidian is that I need a separate copy of each
>community plugin in each vault. I prefer many vaults/databases over a
>single huge one.
> >Lucine wrote:
>Hi Satis,
>>
>>photes.io seems intriguing, thanks for the recommendation. I did try
>out
>>Obsidian a couple of times, uninstalling it every time. The last time
>>was almost a year ago, but it had this very annoying problem of putting
>>images in the document as sub-documents in the navigation pane, which
>>became insanely chaotic after just a few docs.

Back to topic list